Unless one is lucky enough to be sitting at the front tables at Joe Blue's tonight, Richard Garcia's searing jazz and R&B saxophone solos may seem to be coming out of thin air.

That's because Garcia, known as Big Richard to his close friends and fans, sits down to front the Arturo “Sauce” Gonzalez Quintet.

But he anchors the group of legendary players (and cut-ups), which includes bassist Joe Sarli, drummer Kevin Hess and trumpeter Al Gomez of the West Side Horns. The motley collective is easily one of the best things going in Southtown — especially when they're really cooking.

Music runs from 8-11 p.m.; there's no cover.

Band leader Gonzalez's place in history is secure as a founding member of the Sunglows and Sunliners. His organ riffs (along with those of the Royal Jesters' Luvine Elias) epitomize the fabled San Antonio sound of the 1960s.

But the long-running Thursday-night jazz residency is not about nostalgia, though guests such as singer Ernie Garibay and sax great Louie Bustos are always a possibility. It's about hitting a groove.

“It's a world-class thing,” said Garcia, 63. “There are always lots of high points. It's become a fun thing.”

Garcia, a master on sax, flugelhorn and trumpet, actually started out as a bass player back in the days at Page Junior High and Brackenridge High School because “there were no trumpet players in the rock stuff.”

He played a '53 Fender Precision Bass with South Side combos such as the Continentals and the Classics in the mid-'60s. “Rock 'n' roll was still developing,” he said. “But we listened to everything.”

Garcia's music education really came from the streets on the South Side and the East Side. His grandmother lived on Goliad Street, where the Alamodome stands today.

“The influence of the East Side, I grew up listening to all this black music,” Garcia recounted.

“Back then, the churches didn't have air conditioning, so the windows and the doors would be open and you could hear all this R&B, gospel-type music. Which, being raised Catholic, was totally different from what I was used to.”

Those were the days when the Catholic Mass was conducted in Latin, Garcia recalled.

He credits pianist Jon Esquivel as an early mentor. “There was no books out on this thing, how to play jazz, about theory and stuff,” Garcia explained. “You had to figure out by ear and what sounded right.”

The horn man has his own theories about why so many of the great Chicano players on the local scene got into jazz. It was a natural progression if one played brass.

“San Antonio is an incredible melting pot,” said Garcia, who really honed his arranging skills in horn-driven Chicano rock and Tejano. He was 21 when he switched to sax, switching allegiance from Louis Armstrong to King Curtis, Junior Walker and John Coltrane

“Where do you go from playing by ear and playing in Tejano bands? To jazz, if you're an instrumentalist, because you want to better yourself. Where are the better musicians?

“All the great horn players are jazz musicians and classical. And nobody played classical because you had to take damn lessons. Nobody had money for lessons on the South Side, West Side and East Side and stuff. I listened to everybody.”